Colleges take the lead in building green

By eSchool News

July 7th, 2008

There’s a green sheen settling over colleges and universities, reports the Los Angeles Times: Experts who follow building trends agree that in the last decade, as fears of global warming have grown and examples of eco-innovation have spread, campus greening has morphed from a fad into mainstream phenomenon. This spring, East Los Angeles College unveiled 5,952 solar panels that generate nearly half of the college’s energy. At Santa Clara University, one building has carpet tiles made of yarn, and the entire floor is raised on 14-inch legs so that air circulating below can warm or cool classroom floors. A glass "solar chimney" aids ventilation. At Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, Calif., the library is cooled by vertical perforated solar fins. A building at Stanford University is built partly of redwood salvaged from century-old wine vats. And in Iowa, geothermal wells drilled 120 feet below the parking lot at Grinnell College’s Conrad Environmental Research Area help heat and cool the buildings…